Legal Assessment and Speculation on the Topic of Collaborationism in Ukraine. Digital Dimension

The majority of modern researchers of the history of WWII and Great Patriotic War (19391945), analyzing the events that took place seventy years ago speak about the extreme danger of Nazism, since its aggression, in the case of the Nazis’ victory, would cause a civilizational decline for considerable part of mankind, and would lead to humanitarian catastrophe. A significant number of innocent people got into the post-war repression and their fates were crippled by war and totalitarianism. The author of this paper does not in any way desire to justify activities of collaborators or enemy aiders and deserters, as certain historian critics sometimes mistakenly imagine. Our research aims to show – but not to justify – motives of deeds of a person in critical social settings and incentive factors, which may under certain conditions align one’s behavior with a specific course of action. We believe that any statements concerning the inadmissibility of the Nuremberg International Trial rulings review are incompetent and illegitimate.


Introduction
Nowadays, it is not a secret anymore, that the existing digital information space is an area of unprecedented struggle of states for the right to interpret history and consequently the impact on national legal systems. The struggle is taking place at all levels of information supply and dissemination. Often without direct access to the influence of national legal systems, opponents resort to powerful multi-pronged information attacks, distortion of facts, interpretations in order to manipulate the consciousness of society regarding the legal assessment of certain events in history. The issue of legal evaluation and research into the content of the phenomenon of collaborationism in Ukraine during the Hitler occupation of 1941-1944 is no exception. Speculation on this issue is for decades a permanent feature of the Russian Federation's propaganda system. The Russian government's attraction to everything related to the history of the Second World War made the issue of collaborationism in Ukraine in [1941][1942][1943][1944] almost the main factor in building a modern coordinate system in relations between Russia and Ukraine. In order to justify their actions in the Crimea and in eastern Ukraine, the Russian authorities are deliberately manipulating historical facts concerning the manifestations of collaborationism in Ukraine by trying to resolve several issues at once. First of all, to strengthen the propaganda effect on the consciousness of their own society by creating a corresponding cliché to the perception of Ukrainian as traitors and fascists. Secondly, to exert a similar influence on the consciousness of Ukrainian civil society, destroying its national idea. Thirdly, to prevent the international community from recognizing the struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence during the Second World War as a party to the conflict. the propaganda machine of the Russian authorities is trying to tarnish the entire Thus, the propaganda machine of the Russian authorities is trying to tarnish the entire national movement of Ukraine equating it to the banal treason of individual Soviet citizens of Ukrainian origin and trying to give it a proper legal assessment. Success in this case would allow the Russian authorities (in their unfounded opinion) to raise the question of the randomness of Ukraine's statehood as an independent country. Such propaganda rhetoric has intensified especially since the beginning of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2014. Since that time the digital information space has become the point of a massive offensive by Russia's propagandists. Examples of mass propaganda shows and provocative speeches can now be easily found on the Internet [1].
How to resist such an information invasion, defending their state positions both domestically and internationally? One of the strongest tools in this struggle is to conduct open, unbiased research on the issues of collaborationism in Ukraine during the years of Hitler's occupation, and to make such results widely public. At the same time, providing a legal assessment of such a phenomenon as collaborationism will make it possible to resolve one of the most difficult issues of the future reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea. But in order to make such an assessment fairly, it is necessary to refute the myths surrounding this problem. There are already enough tools and materials for such work.
Today the world community has access to the materials of the Nuremberg Trials (Tribunal) of war criminals of World War II. However, the root causes of the military conflict and war are impossible to find in these documents. This is not surprising, at least because international legal acts after the world conflicts, and the Second World War was no exception, are written by the victors. According to A. Lysenko "international law does not always adequately reflect the realities of the past, leaving ample room for speculation, distortion and outright falsifications". And so it is, otherwise, how to explain that the International Tribunal at Nuremberg shifted all the blame for the war only to Germany, Italy and Japan. We now know that before the war the Soviet Union actively collaborated with Nazi Germany in the military, political and economic spheres. Today, historians regard the secret protocols and agreements of 1939 as a legal prologue to World War II. And more than that, both foreign and Ukrainian historians believe that collaborationism in Ukraine and the countries of Western Europe are phenomena of a different kind [2, p.7-8].
Unfortunately today the "Left" fail to notice the fact that during the war the leaders of the Reich declared that Ukrainian nationalism was more dangerous for Reich than communism, and even offered to hand over the power in Ukraine to the Communists, who because of their hatred for the Ukrainian independence supporters would give them away to the German authorities [3, P. 122]. Both Soviet historiography and today/s pro-Soviet one, which is especially characteristic of modern historiography of the Russian Federation, produced and are still producing myths of total betrayal and collaborationism of all the Ukrainian population, all areas of Ukrainian movement for independence and beyond. Everything that is not in the interests of the functioning totalitarian system: UNO, UIA, RLA, RONA, "Cossack" organizations and movements, voluntary police units (with great number of various representatives of the peoples of the USSR), the volunteers of the Wehrmacht, the SS, and others are dumped and mixed improperly in one pile. Moreover, incontrovertible evidence of the criminal nature of diplomacy of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II is ignored.
These facts were promulgated by famous French scholar of the twentieth century, Raymond Aron in his fundamental work "Peace and war among nations": "Diplomacy and strategy of the Third Reich, as well as diplomacy and strategy of the Soviet Union, were between two wars, ideological and imperial and have virtually no nationality.
In the period from 1939 to 1945 the nation lost the unity that used to be characteristic of them from 1914 to 1918. A great number of ideological traitors such as the Germans who gave the advantage to their country defeat over Hitler's victory, the Russians, who fought against the regime, considered to be oppressive and even the French, who dreamt about German victory ... -shows that the nations were no longer believed to be of the highest value and a single principle of political organization by all people [4, p.283]".
As you can see, a significant number of innocent people got into the post-war repression and their fates were crippled by war and totalitarianism. We believe that any statements concerning the inadmissibility of the Nuremberg International Trial rulings review are incompetent and illegitimate, since these decrees were taken by winners, who "take it all". Most Ukrainian scientists share the opinion that research of World War II and Great Patriotic War is already complete; but this assumption is a premature one. We fully agree with the fact that there is enough for historians to research and write about: Ukrainian historiography has just started researching historiosophy of the last world war.
Among the issues of public concern are such complicated social occurrences as collaborationism, aiding the enemy, desertion, and other negative social occurrences, which possess a particular psychological facet. Ukrainian historians are also interested in the origins of these occurrences-phenomena, and in the determining factors that may, under certain conditions, lead to their emergence. The majority of modern researchers of the history of WWII andGreat Patriotic War (1939-1945), analyzing the events that took place seventy years ago speak about the extreme danger of Nazism, since its aggression, in the case of the Nazis' victory, would cause a civilizational decline for considerable part of mankind, and would lead to humanitarian catastrophe.
Within a short time (the period of occupation) Eastern Europe, as well as Western, encountered incredible violation of ethical norms, witnessed and experienced inhuman attitude of Nazi occupiers towards public morals, science, education, and culture in general. Ukrainian society during the Nazi occupation and after the liberation from the Nazis in 1943-1944 experienced various manifestations of deviant behavior: from socially tolerable violations of moral and ethical standards (everyday crudeness, displays of selfishness, friend betrayal), and misdemeanors to felonies: murders, thefts, robbery, participation in punitive actions, etc. Reaction of Ukrainian population to Hitler's occupation regime varied from the very beginning: a certain part (the lesser one, by the way) gladly greeted the occupants as their liberators; the majority -and today it is not a top secret -resorted to timeserving since it was important to preserve the lives of children, and there was the problem of finding food, clothing, medicine, work, housing, etc. Certain part of population (paradoxically, often supported by these opportunists) started underground and guerilla struggle against the Nazi invaders. Partisans and underground fighters also needed food, as well as clothing, medicine, safe houses, and insiders among the civilian population.
It is well known that no occupier can do without the locals' help; no occupation system is viable without engaging local professionals of various levels. So did the Nazis in the occupied Ukrainian territory: in parallel with their own bodies of vertical administration they created bodies of local government, engaging the Ukrainian population for staffing them.
In a flash, a wartime person was put in a situation, demanding a choice: who to support. The occupants left no time for making this choice.
Researchers of complex occurrences-phenomena as, for example, collaborationism and aiding the enemy, cannot but consider the existence of multivariate, alternative possibilities and justification of subjective choices of goals, ways and manners of actions. It will be subjective to divide people into "good" and "bad" without a serious analysis of their actions; and interpretation of historical phenomena without analytics will be a step backwards.
In the 21st century the historiosophy of occurrences-phenomena naturally became the primary object of historical studies. It is well known that all occurrences of social process share an extremely complex structure, and under the influence of a specific historical context the leading role may belong to socialpolitical, cultural-ideological, religious and other factors and contradictions that induce the emergence of a variety of options and pluralism. We believe that this approach helps to understand the causes of emergence of social-psychological occurrences in historical process. Research of any human activity, motives of behavior in general and during Nazi occupation in particular is impossible without analysis of specific features of human thought and moral-psychological image of a person. The authors to justify activities of collaborators or enemy aiders and deserters, as certain historian critics sometimes mistakenly imagine.
Our research aims to show -but not to justifymotives of deeds of a person in critical social settings and incentive factors, which may under certain conditions align one's behavior with a specific course of action.

Our contribution
Life of any person comprises critical, active and creative periods. If a person's critical period of life falls within the period of regression and stagnation of society, it cannot but affect his or her fate. It is known that between wars as well as during the war the most part of Ukrainian population was experiencing those unstable periods of its development -repression and political trials against the "public enemies", constant struggle with the "extremes" and manifestations of "bourgeois nationalism" among Ukrainian creative intelligentsia, "hvylevism", "volobuyevschina", "skrypnykovschyna", "shumkism", etc. Ukrainian population suffered numerous "cleansings", famines, collectivization, dispossession of the kulaks, relocation, industrialization, Sovietization of Western territories.
Thus, the socialization of most Soviet citizens took place in an unstable period of the development of society, when the individual value systems and social behavior were also changing by force of circumstances. It is well known that before the war some people in Ukraine, in order to avoid arrest, consciously reported their neighbors and coworkers. During the war one could witness the same situation: to survive, people were choosing to collaborate with the occupants.
According to psychologists, regardless of age, religion, ideology, the perennial problem in human relations are contradictions between the ideal of socialpsychological tolerance and actual strategies of individual behavior, which can be addressed by tolerant actions [5, p. 16]. The majority of Ukrainian believers found themselves in this situation when they were faced with the dilemma: who to support? People could not behave indifferently. One had to decide. On the one hand, according to Christian ethics, war and violence are wrong, and on the other hand -the priests called their congregations for patience, loyalty, and support for the "new" regime. We do not believe one can condemn such a position of the clergy and the faithful, who saved their own lives and many lives of their compatriots by being tolerant. But it is impossible to justify the actions of those priests, who worked closely with the occupiers, collecting a variety of information and passing it to the Gestapo.
The authors of this paper believes that archival documents and materials from Ukrainian archives allow to assert that under the Nazi occupation a certain part of Ukrainian population (different nationalities: Ukrainians, Russian, Poles, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, and others) with the dominant traits of negative identity unambiguously chose the abnormal course of personal development in society -that is, embarked on a criminal path. Thus, individuals with uncertain personal and civil identity who were prone to conformism became the primary "victims" of criminal collaboration. It is well known that the majority of young people born in Ukraine between the years 1923-1924 were raised in the spirit of the Soviet system rules and ethics of unconditional worship of authorities, dogmatic acceptance of existing practices, rules and regulations, as well as passive, opportunistic adoption of behavior standards. It was such individuals who became an easy "prey" for Nazi propaganda both at the front and in the occupied territory. People who have long been marginalized in society, or reticent individuals reduced to hopelessness also succumbed to the propaganda.
A person who has lost the meaning of life, who has irrevocably wasted years sometimes tries to make up for his losses and even to take revenge for his failure. These individuals are known to have treated prisoners of war, women and children particularly badly, and to have participated together with the German police in punitive actions against the partisans and local population.
According to psychology of motivation, there are two kinds of individuals: people with high and low (with dominating desire to avoid difficulties) achievement motivation. Under the conditions of war and occupation, when transformation of positive needs and values into negative becomes a commonplace occurrence for certain part of society, a person rapidly becomes asocial. This fact was taken into account by the occupiers; that's why various instructions and rules of conduct were prepared for Wehrmacht soldiers and police in the East.
The occupational authorities did not give the population time for reflection, and demanded immediate decisions regarding people's loyaltieswhether they accept the "new" order, or oppose it, or try to compromise with it. The answer depended on each individual's value priorities and spiritual culture. Prevalence of base moral values led to treachery, murder, and inner spiritual meltdown. We assume that the investigation of negative occurrences-phenomena (treachery, desertion, voluntary surrender, punitive actions, etc.) that occurred during the war is supported by psychosocial theories of personalitypsychoanalysis, theory of personal self-esteem coefficient by American philosopher and psychologist William James, and Skinner's "operant" reactions. The occupiers' propaganda actively used the possibility of amplifying or decreasing public reactions by punishment or encouragement, aiming to destroy universal human precepts of coexistence and to promote asocial behavior. It divided society and sparked animosity between nations and peoples.
Following such secret instructions as closing hospitals for "aborigines", discontinuing disease control of typhoid and tuberculosis, supporting immorality, if it did not harm the Germans, the occupiers pursued a policy of enslaving people, "educated" the population. The affect of inadequacy is also a source of anti-civil behavior. In extreme cases, negative behavior of delinquent individuals leads to criminal activities. Such individuals are prone to social instability and immoral actions, aggressive and extremely cruel. On the eve of war thousands of criminals were released from Soviet prisons. Those who remained in the occupied territory, adapted, too; they offered their services as prefects and policemen, hiding their past; participated in punitive actions against partisans and population. Understanding empirical material on theoretical level is required today. Historians are expected not only to provide confirmation, but also to do research based on thorough knowledge of specialized literature and sources as well as theoretical and methodological tools that allow disclosing historical occurrences. Time requires to leave behind traditional layouts of historical materials and to consider the multidimensional manifestations of historical occurrences. Use of the results of philosophers', sociologists', economists and psychologists' work guarantees the possibility of objective and stereoscopic study of every historical occurrence.
History testifies that collaborationism (cooperation with the enemy) exists as long as humanity. A historian will probably not be supported by his compatriots if he proves that in the past their ancestors also cooperated with the invaders. This is only natural, since from ancient times love for Motherland, patriotic feelings and defense of native land used to be each society's foundation of national identity.
Contemporary Ukrainian historians define collaborationism as cooperation of certain representatives of Ukrainian nation with occupational authorities; this cooperation on individual level was characterized by participation in local government and the auxiliary police, controlled by the occupiers; unequivocally assert that there was no mass collaboration among Ukrainian population. Distinguished Western European historian W. Kosik and Canadian historian O. Subtelny also argue that cooperation with Nazi occupiers in the Ukrainian territory took place at individual level (allowing some Ukrainians to survive during the Nazi occupation), but collective political cooperation on the orders of the Ukrainian government or any political party did not take place. According to Prof. S. Kulchytsky, wellknown in Ukraine and beyond, collaborationism is defined by a relationship of two unequal parties and is only possible if both parties agree to establish such relationship. Struggle of Ukrainian nationalists for an independent and united Ukraine excluded collaborationist nature of relationship with the German occupiers; only cooperation at the institutional level is collaborationism. S. Kulchytsky argues that during WWII War collaborationism did not exist in Ukraine, and cooperation on a personal level can not be qualified as treachery. I. e., as one can see, today there is no unanimity on this issue yet.
While researching the topic of collaborationism in the territory of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and in war zone during WWII the authors of this paper made the following definite conclusions [6; 7; 8; 9; 10;11]: firstly, the phenomenon of collaborationism in Ukraine became possible as a result of people's adapting to extreme conditions of war and occupation. Complex dialectic of political and socio-economic processes, which occurred in ethnic Ukrainian territory while it was part of several states before and during the war, catalyzed collaboration among Ukrainian population; secondly, concept comprises following statements: a) collaborationism is defined as a complex multidimensional social-psychological and ethical phenomenon, resulting from interactions of subjects of communication process (separate individuals, a certain part of population) with the occupiers; that is, cooperation with enemy under the conditions of occupational (Nazi) regime; collaborationism is a voluntary or forced cooperation with the enemy in political, military, economical, every day, cultural and other areas, which possesses criminal traits; aiding the occupiers is voluntary or forced assisting the enemy (enemy's military or civil authorities) in carrying out military, political, economical, cultural activities, aimed at reinforcing the regime; labor of workers, peasants, employees of administrative and other establishments, whose activity during the Nazi occupation of Ukrainian territory was aimed at survival and lacked the traits of crime should be considered as such that is not prosecuted; as for the b) typology of collaborationism, in Ukraine it manifested in a wide range -from household and administrative levels to military, economic, cultural, and individually political forms; political collaborationism is cooperation with the enemy on ideological foundations; administrative collaborationism is a form of cooperation with the enemy of loyal individuals from local authorities, whose actions were monitored and guided by the occupiers; military collaborationism is a voluntary or forced service in the military units of Nazis and their satellites; economic collaborationism means cooperation in any branches of economy benefiting the enemy; cultural collaborationism involves cooperation with occupiers in the spiritual realm, which facilitated spreading sentiment of allegiance among the population, promoting supremacy of the Aryan race, was consistent with interests of the occupying authorities and contributed to raising morale of the occupiers; everyday collaborationism is connected to establishing friendly relations between occupiers and the locals and comprises no crime; c) collaboration as a phenomenon reproduces socio-psychological and ethical reality in society during martial law, defines and regulates behavior of both individuals and population in general, which has already been in a state of conformity, and promotes organizing various forms of cooperation and relations with the occupiers.
Erroneous tactical and strategic policy of leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists on the eve and on initial stage of Germany's war against the Soviet Union affected all further activity of Ukrainian movement for independence as well as overall assessment and significance of the struggle for an independent state.
Situational, temporary collaboration with the Nazis for tactical reasons discredited long struggle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) for Ukrainian Independent United State (UIUS).
Conciliatory stance of one of the branches of the OUN-M (Melnykists), the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC), Hetmanists and collaborators, whose activity, in varying degrees, has been associated with the occupation regime, has been extrapolated to the OUN and UPA in general -and that is, in our opinion, unfair and unreasonable.
Violent actions of the Security Service (SS) of the OUN-B (Banderivtsy) in the fight against the enemies of Ukrainian statehood, collaborators and aiders of occupiers, UPA deserters, Soviet activists and other categories of population had nothing to do with collaborationism.
Multidirectional activity of the collaborating local authorities satisfied the occupiers. Due to their help, Nazis controlled situation in the occupied territory. However, activities of collaborators can not be assessed unambiguously -solely positively or negatively -just because all the local authorities were established as subsidiary bodies to impose a "new" Hitler's regime. On the other hand, due to sociocultural activities of collaborators, a certain part of the population was able to survive in the face of brutal occupation.
Totalitarian system morally crippled generations of people; their ideological confusion, political uncertainty, socially amorphous nature were the main (primary) causes for collaboration of part of Ukrainian population.
One of the distinguishing features of collaboration in Ukraine as compared to Western Europe was the formation of the Eastern European military units (Ukrainian security police battalions, Voluntary Cossack Corps, Ukrainian National Army, etc.) not on the basis of Nazi ideology, but based on anti-Bolshevik and independence ideologies. Political (at the individual level), military, administrative, economic, cultural, everyday collaboration and aiding, involving a certain part of Ukrainian society (working class, peasantry, intelligentsia, military, clergy) were caused by political landscape of the time and largely resulted from past cooperation between the USSR and Germany.
Fully legitimate and generally accepted in international practice prosecution of war criminals in the Soviet Union was accompanied by violation of civil rights, politicization of justice, application of collective responsibility, ignoring presumption of innocence, etc.

Conclusion
Ukrainian collaborationism is a unique phenomenon just because, on the one hand, it was collaboration with the occupiers for various reasons in all areas of life in wartime, which was typical for a wide range of collaborators. On the other hand, it was a struggle for independence of Ukrainian people (primarily concerning participants of the Ukrainian national liberation movement). Despite the fact that each of the branches of Ukrainian liberation movement used its own ways of struggle, all of them, at different times, took into their ranks outright collaboratorsthose who by that time had already tarnished themselves by participating in punitive actions against civilians and prisoners of war.
Clearly, such collaborators concealed such activities and disguised themselves as fighters for Ukrainian independence. Famous Ukrainian researcher of activity of Ukrainian Division "SS-Galicia" A. Bolyanovsky writes about it, too, claiming that Ukrainian police in the years 1943-1944 used to be one of the recruiting bases of Ukrainian Insurgent Army. That is why, in our opinion, it is important to approach the issue of Ukrainian military collaboration individuallyto avoid mistakes and to properly determine whose activity was criminal, and whose was not. Not every collaborator was a war criminal. It is known that under international law war criminals are considered those who took part in crimes against humanity, outright traitors or those who accepted Nazi ideas and actively helped the occupiers to impose their expansionist programs, or pursued their own mercantile interests, trying to preserve their lives at any cost, ignoring the interests of their nationthough sometimes being far from Nazi ideas. There were also individuals who combined both cases.
Today it is no secret that Ukrainian combat units of the Wehrmacht and SS troops were manned with both natives of Eastern and Western Ukraine. Thus, the first anti-tank squad "Vilna Ukraina" under command of Petro Dyachenko as well as the squad of Taras Borovets (Bulba) comprised 80% of Eastern Ukrainians and 20% of Halycians. Yet the opposite thing did happen, too: the squad under command of Pituleya comprised 70% of Western Ukrainians and 30% of soldiers from Eastern divisions and guard battalions as well as Ukrainian police. And it is not a coincidence. It is known that the combat formations of Ukrainians in the Wehrmacht were manned to make the majority either "Easterners" or "Westerners". In the Red Army most manpower comprised "Easterners" who fought against the UPA, where the majority consisted of "Westerners". Nazis threw "Westerners" into battle against "Easterners" using their ideological differences and further escalating their confrontation.
Specific feature of Ukrainian military collaboration, according to the authors, are also the extreme unscrupulousness, ideological confusion, amorphous nature and uncertainty of the part of Ukrainian population, which voluntarily agreed to cooperate with the Wehrmacht and occupational authorities (police, for example). Therefore it is not a coincidence that a significant part of Ukrainian policemen switched from Nazis to Ukrainian nationalists, and then again to the Germans; and when the Red Army arrived they joined Soviet troops or Soviet partisan detachments. And all this is confirmed by a large number of archival documents of various origins, among which there are also diaries of the members of Ukrainian national liberation movement.
It is this phenomenon that a young banderivets from OUN Alexander Povshuk wrote about in his diary (we deem it important to convey an excerpt from his diary in the original -Ukrainianlanguage): "When they return to Bolsheviksthey harm Germans. Police, whom Germans kept as their hounds, and who shot their own parents, brothers and sisters, were disbanded; so now they turned into patriots of their folk (partisans, who are many in the woods). Brother Ilko is there, too. I love the truth.").
This dates to April, 30, 1943. As already mentioned, there are quite a lot of such examplesor rather, just the right number to lead to the following conclusion: the totalitarian system morally crippled an entire generation of people who were not able to understand who was the greater enemyeither Nazism or Bolshevism; it was a generation (this only applies to the collaborators!) of unprincipled, cruel, selfish individuals who were capable of quick adapting and serving whoever was in power. Unfortunately, such individuals occurred within the ranks of OUN, UIA, the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the NKVD, and even moreamong voluntary Ukrainian police and security units. Similar unprincipled and indifferent to their Motherland-Ukraine individuals occurred among the Ostarbeiters. This is evidenced by a mere fact from the memories of a former Ukrainian Ostarbaiter, who worked in a car workshop near Berlin and met there at the end of the war young guys from Ukraine who did not care who to serve, since the main thing for them was the availability of "good food".
Certain part of Soviet population who had already lived under the Soviet rule for 20 years before WWII was demoralized and depoliticized. Only this fact can explain the mass desertion of soldiers from the Red Army, Soviet partisans from squads and units, from 'voluntary' police subdivisions, mass surrender of Soviet servicemen, especially early in the war. This is confirmed by both Soviet and the Nazi archival documents; for example, by the report of Field Police Chief of Army Group "South" from September, 10, 1943 on the conduct of "volunteers" -"Hiwi" and soldiers from local populationon their licentiousness and casual attacking local population, which had a negative, as evidenced by the German soldiers themselves, impact on relationship between population and the Wehrmacht.
The main reasons for Ukrainian collaboration were ideological rejection of Bolshevism, confusion, fear of the power and cruelty of occupiers, desire to survive whatever the price, mercantile interests. At the expense of "volunteers" and "voluntary" units the Nazis not only replenished the Wehrmacht with "cannon fodder", but also significantly reduced the influx of Ukrainian population to the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
With the assistance of local collaborators occupiers managed to quite rapidly start the production on Ukrainian enterprises of light and food industries for the Wehrmacht and the Reich; mechanical engineering, chemical, metal processing factories and workshops were accommodated for the repair of motor vehicles, tanks, aircraft, aircraft engines, armored vehicles and production of projectiles for the Wehrmacht. Reconditioned power plants also worked exclusively to benefit the occupiers. All in all, the operation of labor force aimed only at serving the Wehrmacht and the Reich.
However, the authors believe that labor activity of the majority of ordinary workers, peasants and officials, who for various reasons remained in the occupied territory, can not be at all attributed to neither collaborationism nor aiding the enemy, since this activity was not a criminal one, but a way of survival and the result of the people's adaptation to the extreme and existential conditions of war.
However, a significant number of innocent people with destinies crippled both by war and totalitarianism were repressed, too. We believe that any statements concerning the inadmissibility of the Nuremberg International Trial rulings review are incompetent and illegitimate.